Radiation, All Ghillied Up
by omegazeroinfi
Summary: As Price recounts his time back in Chernobyl, he can't help but feel his recollection is off somewhere down the line. Perhaps the radiation has done more to his mind than he thought.
1. All Ghillied Up

"It was the first time our government had authorized an assassination order since the second world war. I was under the command of Captain MacMillan." recounted Cpt. Price.

-15 Years ago-

' _Its quiet_ ' Price thought to himself. For as risky as it is to be here, he can't help but find himself relaxed. Just standing around in the breeze, watching the grass sway, he pulled out his M21 rifle and waited for the word from his Captain...speaking of which, where is he? Lt. Price in his moment of peace had completely lost sight of him.

"Too much radiation. We'll have to go around." said Cpt. MacMillan as he gets up from his prone position.

Oh, there he is. If these ghillie suits could make him lose track of his Captain three feet in front of him, he could probably act like a perfectly normal moving bush in plain sight and still not be seen by the enemy.

"Careful, there's pockets of radiation all over this area. If you absorb too much, you're a dead man." warned Mac as he pointed out the warning signs off to the side.

Following Mac up to a small shed, he tells me to standby while he checks the area ahead.

"Contact. Enemy patrol dead ahead. Stay low and move slowly. We'll be impossible to spot in our ghillie suits." said MacMillan.

Taking a page out of his book and crawling up, I line up a shot on the first enemy, only for his friend to somehow silently alert everyone in the span of half a second by just reeling back in shock. What the hell? OK, so maybe it hadn't been the best idea to shoot the guy standing five inches from him, but there's no way he could have alerted anyone when he died a second later.

"We've been spotted, Dogs in the tall grass!" Cpt MacMillan shouted.

This further had me on edge. How did they find us so quickly? My confusion forgotten in favor of trying to grab the dog that just pinned me, I make to grab its head only to miss. Time had stopped, flashing before my eyes, only to continue when a flash of pain gripped my throat. Everything slowed and went gray. Was this how it ends?

The next thing I know, I'm snapping out of a daydream just outside the shack. What just happened? Was I really that pessimistic to believe that I would mess everything up right away? Putting these thoughts to the back of my mind, I move up around the left side and see two familiar guards just wandering around.

"Contact. Enemy patrol dead ahead. Stay low and move slowly. We'll be impossible to spot in our ghillie suits." said MacMillan.

OK, this was a serious case of deja vu, but then a thought occurred to me; 'impossible to spot in our ghillie suits'? There's an idea.

"Mac, I'm moving up." I said as I crawled up, just waiting for them to turn their backs. My patience is rewarded with a free shot to the back of their heads. Mac nabbed the other one.

"Good night." With a job well done, Mac moves up to the next overhead patio and decides its better for us to go around.

As I round the corner, my heart nearly stops. Inside are four men, one sleeping, and the cause of my sudden panic, a dog sleeping on the couch. Ignoring my Captain, I walked in from the side knifing a couple in the back and shooting down the last one as one had walked out of the room earlier.

Walking past the dog sleeping on the couch, somehow aware there are more, I peer into a room ready to frag them to oblivion when-

"They're on to us. Open fire!" I had alerted the guy outside. With no time to think, one of the dogs knocked me over about to have an afternoon snack. Thankfully, the grenade and my reflexes has saved me from being lunch.

After that little episode, I hear gunfire outside...repeated gunfire. I step out and see a sight you have to see to believe. 'Why is this guy shooting at a wall?' I wonder to myself. I take a closer look to see Cpt. MacMillan hiding around the corner looking for a chance to take out his target; kind of hard when you're being shot at I'm sure.

I couldn't believe it. Is their aim really THAT bad? I mean, looking at this guy's shots, he's spraying bullets literally left, right, and clearly nowhere near where his firearms were being aimed. Not only that, but Mac is getting a couple of pot shots off with his rifle and hes not even hitting him.

One had even flew by my own head! After 30 seconds of watching this amazing display of marksmanship mastery, he pulls his AK back out and begins to fire it again.

' _When is this guy going to run out of ammo?_ ' I mused when all of a sudden he turns his attention to me! It wasn't long before he found my knife scraping across his chest and he dropped to the ground dead.

"We won't get very far trying to shoot our way out of every situation. Move up." ordered Mac. I suppose things could've gone worse.

As we come along to a set of trees, I notice a building to our left. Taking the time to investigate, I hear Mac pointing out a couple tangos ahead; one in a watch tower and another looking right at me! Not taking any chances, I quickly shoot them down from a safe distance before anything else can go wrong.

"That was close. You lead a charmed life leftenent. Move." I could see the rest of the day now. One bad luck streak after another. Its amazing we haven't been shot yet. Walking up to the building with the watch tower, Mac kicks in the door, probably out of frustration for how poorly the mission has gone so far. Seeing a couple of stinger missiles laying around, I grab one just knowing something is going to go wrong to the point that I would be glad to have it on hand.

"The coast is clear." Mac said. The relief in his voice probably said more than his words. Knowing we were good to go, I take a second to look around.

In front of me is a ladder to the watch tower. I climb up to find a nugget of good news. A laptop containing information on the troops deployments, scheduled patrol routes, and estimates of gains on the arms deal exchange with Zakhaev. Turns out that there's a large enemy force coming this way, but

before I can do anything with this information, a helicopter spots me; Damn it!

Suddenly very glad to have picked up a stinger, I climb down the tower only to have it be shot out from under me. Thankfully by then, I was low enough to the ground, but there was no time to be disorientated. I step outside prepared to take out the chopper. This was much more difficult than it sounds. This chopper is out for blood! It kept launching missiles everywhere to the point where I'm surprised there's any roof left. A couple of stingers later and I find myself relieved that the flying metal menace is spinning out of control.

"All right. Now you're just showin off. Lets go." Mac said tiredly. By now, everything is starting to wear down on him.

"Mac, I found a list of patrol routes in what used to be the watch tower. Some tanks and a large enemy force will be passing through here shortly." At this, he just stopped and stared at me. His eyes just hoping, BEGGING me not blow our cover again. You could just see how weary he was from this.

No stealth mission he's ever been on has ever gone so wrong in just seven minutes.

Playing it safe for his sanity, we move up through the cemetery to an open field. It wasn't long before we had to get down to hide from the patrol. At this point, after everything we've been through, I don't think he cared much for personal comfort as I was crawling almost on top of him. With one thing finally going right, we managed to sneak past the patrol allowing us a small reprieve. we crawled up the hill until we got to a safe distance and took cover behind a ruined tank and forklift.

"Looks like they already eliminated all the men they couldn't buy out. Lets move up for a better view." said Mac as he walked around taking in the sights. They're two men dumping bodies in the pond, one walking in the distance, one lounging by a container, and probably many more inside some of them. Deciding to press our luck, we slowly sneak by them. Alerting one was already a death sentence in a fire fight; at least this way we would have cover from the patrol behind us if we get caught further up ahead. Thankfully, these ghillie suits worked like a charm as we were all but visible to the soldiers just doing their own thing.

"We work as a team, remember? Wait for me." ordered Mac. In confusion, I get up and look around for him. Sure, I lost track of him shortly after we moved, but I apparently got there way quicker than he did. What the hell was taking him so long? After taking a second to look at my compass, I realized he was already past me. When did he get there? Anyways, I move up to him wondering what the next move is.

"Stay-back." Ordered Mac. Turns out there's a lone tango just wandering by. Mac takes the time to move behind him and tells me he has this one.

"Oi, Suzy!" whispered Mac. In a moment of confusion, the soldier turns around only to find a rifle bashing his skull killing him. If there was anyone who knew how to lighten the mood on a sniper mission, it was Mac.

While Mac moved up on the left, I noticed there was an opening on the right. OK now in my defense, my brain has shutdown, or maybe I strayed through a radiation pocket for too long, but I felt it was important to walk up and grab that laptop in front of three people.

"Are you daft?" Mac could only wonder what the hell Price was thinking walking up there and to his amazement, they didn't even see him do it!

"I'll give you one thing. You certainly have the minerals." he said just watching me crawl right past them mere feet away from them.

Glad that nothing went wrong from my actions this time, I took the time to look through the laptop while Mac moved up and checked the area ahead. Inside the PC was more information; this time being a roster list with many of the names being listed as 'Active', 'KIA', or 'Executed'. From our hiding space, we could see a convoy in the area. We knew that getting through here was going to be a challenge, but there was a conveniently long line of trucks parked behind each other that us walking bush-monkeys could use. Sneaking through this area wasn't so hard. Just like how people never look up, the same could be said for looking down.

"Patience, don't do anything stupid." he stated calmly. I wanted to feel miffed at this, but then I remembered what I had done not even two minutes ago. Deciding to wait it out, we hold; not long after, an opportunity to run emerges and we haul ass to the crates up ahead only to stop when we see an enemy sniper on the fire escape. Taking a good look at him through my scope, I see a rocket on his back giving me ideas Mac would probably kill me for later. I take him out and we proceed up the stairs, or at least I do; Mac went into the building. Sure enough, I find a stinger and another laptop with orders to get back to his post on it.

Grabbing the stinger, I take a shot at the helicopter and prepare for a firefight. In a cry of frustration, Mac prepares to fight for his life, or at least he would if all the enemies weren't all coming to me. A few dogs jump into my window and all the soldiers for whatever reason decided not to look first and just jump over and got filled with bullets from a g36c I found in the top floor room. After about a minute of shooting people who came into my window, it got very quiet. Too quiet. I look around wondering if that was everyone only to realize I haven't heard from Mac since this started. In a panic, I rush down the fire escape to check on him to find him just chilling on the other side of the wall, completely unconcerned with what just happened seconds ago.

"Move up" Mac ordered. OK, so I think he's reached the point of expecting this kind of behavior.

Reaching a large complex, we see a lone dog chewing on a corpse. In a fit of rage, I shoot the dog before Mac can say anything. The reward for my hunt? A distant howl, and a huge pack of dogs that would give me a heart attack. With the help of the machine gun I picked up earlier, I was able to gun most of them down and a couple of frags didn't hurt either. Nearing our objective, Mac began to muse about this place being a 'ghost town'. He did have a point considering its not the most livable place nowadays. There's no-one left between us an our objective. Its time to hole-up.

-after thoughts.

AN: Funny enough, I was playing MW Remastered on veteran and thought to myself. this is a mission i know well, perhaps i can make an interesting two shot out of it. yea well, it ended up being a bit more frustrating than i thought. the part near the end with the dogs, i ended up getting a save right AFTER shooting the dog, so i had to restart the entire mission. I tried numerous things like hiding on TOP of the slide in the playground, but the dog somehow jumped up 7 feet in the air and knocked me over anyway. Truth be told, i actually didnt have a g36c at that moment. i died at one point and never bothered picking it back up after writing that one bit. it is possible to gun them all down with 1 machine gun, but its easier to have the rpd and to start off with a couple of grenades. sometimes, you can throw them in a way to make mac run away from the dogs giving you more time to gun them down. be very careful not to shoot mac when you try to gun a dog off him. its very easy to fail in your mission that way.

turns out that IW didnt quite make this mission the same either. the helicopter in the convoy area actually no longer does anything and i couldnt even lock on to shoot it, so instead, i decided to have a little fun and instead of following mac, i actually sniped everyone and walked around the convoy.

by doing this, mac stayed back by the truck, no enemies spawned and i was able to just skip past everything.

the dead guy that the dog eats? because i got there so quick, he was still alive and the dog ran after me instead, but since mac was a good 200 meters in the other direction, it didnt spawn the horde either. funny thing about it that i wanted to write about, if you enter the area, go to the far right, and look around, grass and nothing around at all. shoot the dog and look around, about 2 dozen dogs that werent there are now suddenly at your feet waking up from their nap getting ready eat your face.


	2. One Shot, One Kill

-2 1/2 Days later-

After holing up in our sniping nest, we planted a claymore and mounted an M82 .50 Caliber Rifle on the perch. Acting as my spotter was Captain Macmillan. This was not an easy job, or else we wouldn't have been called. Its time to do it.

"Leftenant Price, the meeting is underway. Enemy transport sighted entering the target area" said Mac. Taking the time to look at the photo of the target one last time wedged under a brick, I take up the sights and watch as several vehicles enter the fray.

Just thinking that soon the mission would be over, I briefly forget one of the rules of firearms. Never put your finger on the trigger BEFORE you are ready to fire. Right as Mac was reminding me of his lessons about wind and earth rotations over long distances, he only had one thing to say.

"Are you daft?" he asked exasperated.

Luckily, nobody seems to have noticed my little slip up. Silently reminding myself as to why I'm the one taking the shot, I zoom an in and search for the target. Coming out of one of the trucks is a man with a heavy duty case. One Imran Zakhaev; the target we've spent nearly three days in a radiation drenched land to kill. He opened the goods to show the other involved party just what is being sold. From here, it looked like a large gold bar, but I can't be too sure. On the other hand, if it were a weapon, I sure wouldn't be tossing it around like a hot potato like they are.

While musing to himself, Price inwardly cursed his luck when a helicopter showed up out of nowhere blocking his view of the target. After a moment, the chopper moved on, and the wind was still going strong. From the looks of frustration on the targets face, he might not stick around for much longer. It was then that I realized it was now or never, and Mac seemed to realize it too if his words were any indication, so I took the shot...and it was WAY off. It went very far to the left and hit the driver in the fourth truck in the convoy. I figured he wasn't anyone important and fired off a volley of shots in a desperate and successful attempt of hitting Zakhaev.

Satisfied as seeing him topple over with an arm flying through the air, a more pressing problem emerges. Chopper, we meet again it seems. On the Captains orders, I shoot it down and we rappel down and out of the hotel. From here on, its weapons free. Everyone knows we're here now, so I removed

my suppressors and followed my Captain out. Overhearing Mac's conversation with the extraction team, I knew we didn't have much time.

"Forget these guys. We're going to get left behind. Lets get to the extraction point!" yelled Mac as he tried to snipe a path through the enemy troops.

"Mac! There's too many, how can we lose them?" I asked while picking off a few who thought it'd be smart to go around and flank us.

"We'll lose em in that apartment! Come on!"

Seeing the apartment, I ran as fast as I could to get there. Thankfully, Mac cleared a path; now I turn to do the same for him. Its risky, but we have to shoot everything in our immediate path to cut down as much fire as possible. Once we arrive the apartment, it occurred to me that the enemy did not follow us, but rather ran the way we came from. Vaulting through the windows, we find a dog. By now, I've had more than enough of these things and take it out while its behind the fence.

"They didn't follow us, I think they went around to try and cut us off!" I exclaimed. Mac seemed to be thinking much along the same lines as he had me place a claymore by the door and wait. We weren't waiting long because from the building on the other side came another set of soldiers coming after us. Once they were gone, we thought we were in the clear, at least until another helicopter showed up.

"Price, shoot the helicopter. We'll take it down together!" Mac yelled in a panic. We really couldnt afford to miss and I was all too happy to oblige. I sent out a few shots towards the cockpit and soon enough, it went down.

"Good night ya bastard..." Mac said in relief. That relief sadly didn't last as the chopper was spinning out and heading our way. I looked on in horror as Mac tripped and had to crawl away from the vehicle. I could only hope that he could make it as there was nothing I could do for him if he got caught now. My prayers were partially answered until this little tidbit registered in my mind.

"Sorry mate, you're gonna have to carry me!" Mac's leg got messed up. If I went down now, he would have no hope for survival. Picking him up, he realizes I won't be able to fight off anyone as he tells me to put him down somewhere if we ran into any further trouble. Remembering what he said a couple days ago about the ghillie suits, I resolve to put him in the best spot I can.

Whoever said fortune favors the bold, I have to shake that person's hand. Very shortly after picking up Mac, I've been forced to drop him in the middle of the street to avoid dying to the mountains of gunfire I just got pelted by. Giving my prayers to Mac as I duck behind a car, I hear a few sniper shots; then nothing. I pop up to take down whoever shot Mac, only to see that Mac was the one who took everyone else down by himself.

An Idea pops into my head making me realize just how bizarre this situation is. I couldn't really afford to die as I was his only transport out of here, and he probably should have died when he got dropped into a firefight in a panic. But for some reason, the grenade that blew up by his feet didn't even seem to phase Mac. He just kept inching forward towards me waiting to pick him up. Gotta give him credit; this is by far the most literal definition of 'down, but not out' I've ever witnessed and I was going to milk this for all it was worth.

I took Mac around the corner and placed him in the middle of the plateau and hid myself in the bushes to the side. Everyone was shooting at him and somehow again, he was unaffected by their bullets. A good 30 seconds later, and he CLEARED the area all by himself. Its moments like these that I remember that he's the Captain and I'm the Leftenant. By this point, the next set of enemies that came from the heli, I just put him down and used him as a meat-shield. It worked remarkably well to my delight.

After grabbing Mac, we enter another building. With all these close quarters engagements, I'll have to check each room before we can safely move on. Seconds later, I'm very glad I did. Once again two more dogs tried to maul me, those little buggers, and a couple of troopers just waiting around the corner.

"Its time to move. Give me a lift." order Mac. After that, I found something very curious. There was a fire escape with a laptop, now I couldn't just leave that behind. So I climbed the ladder while somehow carrying Mac. The moment of silence clued me into Mac wondering just how the hell I climbed a ladder with no hands while carrying another human being. I think he was just trying to roll with it instead of hurting his brain. Inside the laptop was intel on their own weapon logistics; nothing too interesting bar the rather substantial amount of troops holding RPDs.

"We're almost there. the extraction point is on the other side of that building." Mac pointed out. It looked like an old swimming gymnasium housing the bane of my existence. More dogs, a small pack of them I think. Stopping to think for a second, I decide to scare them by dropping a grenade nearby, but as soon as I put Mac down, they run out of the pool and start chewing up the enemy.

"Looks like wild dogs can be helpful for a change." I said as I grab Mac and make my way down to the extraction point. Approaching the EP, our comms pick up a message.

"Alpha Six, This is Big Bird standing by for your signal, over"

Glad to know we made it, I place Mac behind the Ferris wheel and begin to set some traps. I find a nice area on the Ferris wheel to climb up on, and hole in. With the beacon active, Big Bird knows where to find us and by extension, so do the Russians. When they got close, I set off all my C4 and to my utter surprise and shock at the unrealness of the situation, three guys survive the explosion and start shooting a sidearm exactly at my position. What the hell did I do to give myself away? They got an explosion, not gunfire.

Putting these thoughts aside, I begin to snipe. It really feels like an entire army is going after two guys. Completely unreal, what with the large group of reinforcements, and three to four more helicopters dropping more troops off. Haven't they learned by now that this is a complete waste of their manpower? Its not like us two were worth losing several squads of enemies right? Well, if they want to play it that way, I can think of one way that this will end well for us.

Now, what Price was about to do was far from what one would call sane, but it was damn effective. The enemies dwindled for a bit, so ditching the M21 for an RPD, Price ran over to where the enemy was coming from. Lone behold, this meant they had to come at him from one direction and they were all slaughtered in seconds. A few minutes later, Big Bird showed up; It was time to retrieve Mac. On his way over, he found a door open with another delicious wealth of information one calls a laptop. Grabbing that, he made his way over to Mac which was almost made easier with newfound cover fire drawing attention away from him if not for the stray shots pelting him through his new computer. With red clouding his vision, he hurried to the LZ with Mac in tow and took a seat. Price waved good-bye to Pripyat and rested easy for a bit wondering what information the now dead laptop held.

-Back to present time-

"And that was how I fought my way through Pripyat with only my commanding officer by my side." finished Price. Everyone stared at him. Gaz was the first of them to recover from absurdness of the tale.

"Um, sir? I'm pretty certain that a disabled sniper left out in the middle of nowhere would be mincemeat, not to mention there's a lot I'd do for you, but I think I speak for everyone when I say we really don't want to be anyone's meat-shield." said Gaz getting unanimous nods of agreement.

-Afterthoughts

AN: This mission can either be easy or hard on veteran depending on how you want to do things. if you go for the achievement of killing Makarov and Zakhaev, things can be a nightmare as the wind is more random and the enemy threat is low at first. once mac goes down though, you have to stay with him or he will die of a heart attack.

on the otherhand, hes completely invincible while you're close to him making it a good idea to put him where he can see a lot of enemies.

for the last part where you have to survive a long wave of enemies, instead of fighting by the ferris wheel which is a good idea on lower difficulties, right by the pool building, go around back. there should be an open door once enemies start coming from back there. once you clear the first wave, go back there with a machine gun and just sit inside the door. Macs still invincible, and enemies will have one hell of a hard time getting to you since they can only come from the front.


End file.
